How to deal with rejection

  
Don’t get mad, don’t get even, just be stupidly grateful: it works for me

A BRITISH WOMAN named Jacqueline Howett wrote a book and published it herself on the Internet.

Astonishingly, a book critic actually took the trouble to review it. Big Al gave it a thumbs up, saying that although the spelling was bad, the story was “compelling”.

The thin-skinned Ms Howett was furious, posting a response describing him as “discusting” [sic], and saying:

“Your [sic] the target not me! Not get this review off here!”

As the fight continued, Ms Howett, from the UK, added:

“You are a big rat and a snake with poisenous [sic] venom.”

An observer gently pointed out that Ms Howett, by misspelling all her remarks, was merely “proving Al’s point for him”.

Ms Howett replied with a two-word phrase: “**** off!”

(She managed to spell that term correctly, no doubt after a quick flick through a dictionary.)
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This recent skirmish (which has grown to more than 300 comments on Big Al’s book blog) caused much amusement among REAL writers last week.

 

You see, the lives of full-time workers in the creative industries are filled with such VAST amounts of rejection and criticism that we have skins thicker than ancient carnivorous dinosaurs such as the megalosaurus, the oviraptor, Rupert Murdoch, etc.

Doctors give us injections with pneumatic road drills.
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For example, two years ago, this columnist wrote a song with Katy Oh, a singer from Singapore.

So far our YouTube video has received 637 comments, almost all negative.

The “dislike” button (see red line in image above) has been pressed way more than the like button.

But we are so pathetically desperate for feedback that we’re thrilled by all of them.

They range from “This is horrible” to “This is ***ing horrible.”

We write back:

“Thanks for your kind comment! You made our day!”

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For decades, the governments of Singapore and China proudly held the crown of World’s Thinnest-Skinned Groups, with epidermises a single atom thick.

But this year that crown was stolen by celebrities at the Golden Globes awards.

Host Ricky Gervais simply told the truth. For example, he looked at the “mature” women who starred in Sex & the City 2 and said: “I was sure the Golden Globe for special effects would go to the team that airbrushed the poster.”

He continued: “Girls, we know how old you are. I saw one of you in Bonanza.”

The celebrities were outraged. The world’s viewers were delighted. Well done, Ricky. (Here’s the rest of his spiel:)

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But staying on the topic of YouTube: surely the motherlode of thin-skinned people is the strange community of people who add comments to that site?

For example, under one video, a girl named Lily “Tinkerbell” wrote a one-word abusive comment: “stuped”.

Lily, dear, if you can’t spell “stupid”, you probably are not cut for the life of a critic.

This is an example of what Shakespeare called “being hoist with your own petard” (“hanging yourself up by your genitalia”).
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Bad spelling is everywhere these days.

A woman posted a question on a parenting website:

“Why does my brian hurt?”

I posted an answer:

“He hurt his stomach laughing at his mother’s spelling.”

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It occurs to me that if Jacqueline Howett wants a writing partner, she could team up with Ms Tinkerbell to create books together.

Every time someone criticizes them, they can reply:

“How dair you say we kant spel. Your discusting and stuped.”

And if they post that remark on this website, I’ll reply like a true creative professional:

“Thanks for your kind comment! You really made my day!”

Now I need to finish this post. As a professional writer, I have a big pile of rejection slips to open.
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Technorati Tags: Jacqueline Howett,Big Al,thin skin,thin-skinned,Ricky Gervais,Golden Globes,writer,rejection,the writing life

(Illustration at the top by Lara604 posed by a model and used under a creative commons 2.0 licence, source here.)

Comments

[Nury]

Hi guys, the newspapers where I live closed down for a four-day weekend so I actually took some time away from the computer -- thanks for filling in the time with some good comments on the previous post.

Grandpa and Bianca -- so philosophical and thought-provoking as always. (To add a pic to a comment, see instructions on the right hand column, just under "recent comments")

TS -- love the supermarket story!

Liftie, Angela, rafanj -- always make me smile.

And I agree about Graham -- he should definitely post more.

[grandpa]

Humm
It was not meant to be philosophical.
It was plain gossip for my hairdresser's salon.

[TS]

Reading through BigAl's review and her comments, I'm just astounded at how ridiculous she is.
She belongs to the new generation that think that X-Factor and American Idol is a way to make a career, despite having no talent at all.

She might just be the first writer in the history of the universe who does not find little things to correct in their writings, even after it has gone through several revisions and third party proof-readings.

[Paul]

While I understand the need and desire of authors for literary accuracy, I need to warn you all that the Internets are not the place to find such compliance with authored etiquette.

The web is rife with new forms of communication such as;
L337 (Leet) Speak
(Leet is slang for elite, and a new language used by online gamers).

There are even L337 Speak translators online.

Try putting in the following L337 sentence into the translator found at the link above.

(4|\| 1 |-|4\/3 7|-|3 d4'/ 0PhPh?

Another example is the cute, but sinfully sweet
Lolcats
which spawned from the original I Can Has Cheezburger? and went on to become an internet meme and a website that sold for US $2million.

So much cash for cute but orthographically incorrect creations may mean that perhaps the future of writing is in the hands of people like Ms. Howett and Ms. Tinkerbell.

And to the point on rejection, just let me say that I think rejection is wrong and therefore I reject all rejection. ;-P ;-)

[TS]

Aaarrgh!! That could have been wriiten better:

Reading through BigAl's review on his Books and Pals blog and her following comments, I'm just astounded at how self-absorbed she is.

She belongs to the new generation that think that X-Factor and American Idol is a way to make a career, despite having little or no talent at all. Not open to constructive criticism at all.

She might just be the first writer in the history of the universe who does not find little or major things to correct in their writings, even after it has gone through several revisions and third party proof-readings.

[TS]

Whoops: Aaarrgh!! That could have been written better:....

[rafanjr]

...TS, you're self-rejecting.

...but you'll probably reject my opinion.

[Nury]

Paul, I tried it.
Your odd bit of text:
(4|\| 1 |-|4\/3 7|-|3 d4'/ 0PhPh?
comes out at "Can I have the day off?"
I guess this is all part of the bizarre human desire for making language hide thoughts instead of communicate them -- like cockney rhyming slang or Chinese crazy talk.

TS -- there is definitely a novelist inside you!

But it's funny how some people can take rejection, while others really can't.

I guess it's like the theory of the Adversity Quotient -- only some of us bounce back from rejection.

Also, I guess its why people like Mick Jagger hardly make records any more, but just do concerts.

His solo albums didn't sell at all, and were big loss makers.

But when he appears on stage, the wild applause makes up for all the rejection he suffers among music buyers...

[TS]

TS -- there is definitely a novelist inside you!

Yeah, I know. Most of the time he's just craving potato chips though.

[Lift Lurker]

Rejection is painful experience. Humans want to be accepted. That is why only thick skin people can succeed in sales because salesmen always get rejected.

Thin skin people decide they do not want rejection and become writers. Bad choice. Welcome to hell and town called Rejection.

- Rejection from publisher

- Rejection from junior editors

- Rejection from public

- Rejection from critics

- Rejection from Oprah

- And worse of all, rejection from ebook pirates

But in this 21st century I do not understand why we still need rejection from humans.

Almighty G-e (the search engine), already know what we all want. So I think their next product can be the Publishing Decider.

The writer upload draft to G-e. G-e review the draft against other upcoming publication and trending topic and people interest then return analysis to writer:

DECISION
============
Likelihood of success: 0.04%
Recommendation:
- You must use more F words
- Change romantic setting from The Hague to Paris
- Change hero name from Winston to Jean-Paul
- Change hero job from barber to parachutiste
- Change heroine mobile from using Microsoft Smartphone to using our Android
- Change heroine from female to bi vampire
- Mention BigAl in story.
Follow recommendation and success become: 95% if publish within 2 weeks.

[Bianca Schlimm]

Please forgive me all my mistakes, the lovely English is not my mother tongue!

I also want to read a novel about Bob now. Does he go to the haircutter?! Does he meet a certain grandpa there?
that would be highly entertaining.

you have to take rejection as attention. The world might not be ready yet, slooooooooooooooooooooooo-
oooooooooooooooooooooooowly taking in new ideas.

I very much liked the video about Hongkong and la di la slang! who cares what boring majorities think??

[Paul]

"who cares what boring majorities think??"

Certainly not most politicians ;-P ;-)

[Karuna aka Kaye Moreno]

Nury
Just logged into my gmail a/c and have added my rejection to your youtube video. Will also tell my dependable friends on facebook to do the same.
Do remember to thank me when your video goes viral and you are ranked #1 with the maximum number of rejections on youtube.

[Lee of Bee]

Hi Nury,

this is how you deal with rejection http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ApZbtYPhy4

[rafanjr]

...after sometime of ruminating, Howett may not seem to be looking for acceptance in her work, thus the tirade when somebody commented or gave an "unsolicited advise".

...so i think that people who accepts rejection are those who knew they are looking for acceptance.

[Lift Lurker]

Bianca,

I think about spelling and grammatic mistakes and I think this is not so important.
Breaking this laws is not against the law. It is only against convention.

Progress is made only by break of convention. If we did not break convention maybe we still be using 'thee' and 'thou' ("Hast thou bathed in the holy river yonder? Ye must! To save thon sun from the eclipse.")

Just like painters break convention: they get tired of realism and changed to impressionism and then changed to cubism and then changed to surrealism and then changed to abstract expressionism.

So maybe people who cannut spell but have something to say are actually brilliant surrealist writers.

'Stupid' is boring realism

'St000000pid' is impressionism

'SpuTiD' is cubism

'You're the once who stuped' is surrealist

'$&%*&@#@' is expressionism

[Angela]

Woohoo!!! my home internet is back so I can post comments.

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Yesterday noon time my internet connection suddenly went off, together with my cable tv signal.

I called my service provider and they told me I was disconnected due to technical issues on their side, being a non-technical person (a.k.a.female), I rejected that explanation and requested for "INSTANT"reconnection because I need internet for my work (reading comments and posting comments on mr.jam and watching trashy reality shows).

They rejected my demand because the problem can only be repaired in 24-48hrs.

I rejected that and demanded for service reconnection by dinner time.

They rejected me, this time silently, they simply did not answer my phone calls anymore.

And just half an hour ago my internet connection was re-established.

I am now re-connected to the rest of the world.

What a torture the past 22 hours was. I can only read mr. Jam on my tiny iphone screen and I can't even post comments.

The lesson I learned is, when you keep on rejecting rejections, you will eventually get your internet connection back.

[grandpa]

grandma
Now that you are back, can you post more and read less?

[Bianca Schlimm]

MODERN Playground ART:

Liftuanian: I not stupid la

Lithuanian: we go seriously for Grand Prix (Eurovision de la Chanson) every year!

French Carribean: je ne suis married, donc je suis

Singapore: we cannot stupide, we got angela bonita

German: so dumm dass es brummt... modern means to be mummyfied in german by the way, to rot

Nury: As the tiger was approaching the supermarket...

TS: ... Bob was getting grilled by the hairstylisto.

[Chamin]

We in the research community need really thick skins. The rejection rate of our papers is anywhere between 60-90% nowadays.

The reviewers are mostly rude and sometimes evil(I do similar work, so I reject his paper).

Here is the famous Hitler video, with a parody on a paper rejection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VRBWLpYCPY

[Bianca]

CH: Cool!

Scientific Umrican as the last of lasts.

If only they had taken him at art school!

Let's see what the world will have to suffer from ME if I don't find nice job!

Might even invent new religion even huuuuaaaah.

[Chamin]

Bianca,

I am going to invent a new religion called Doraimonism.

There is this cartoon character called Doraimon, who gives a kid wonderful gadgets that can do cool things. My prophecy is that he will come and solve all the problems in the world (including the media) if we eat our cereal :-p

[TS]

Note to self:
Remember to register "Doraimon" as a trademark for cereal.